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Cyber Theft (and Regular Theft) of Employee and Company Data

May 5, 2017

In the past, employer’s primarily had to worry about data being stolen by employees carrying out hard copies in boxes. As time progressed, new concerns involved information being downloaded to storage devices or emailed to sources outside the company. But now data is being taken by outside sources using cyber methods that are both simple (but sneaky) and extremely complex. One popular method used to acquire employee data is known as spear-phishing. Spear-phishing often occurs in January and February as employers are delivering W-2s and is executed by someone sending an email to human resources from an executive that appears to be genuine. The email asks for a file with all company W-2s, the company W-3 and related payroll information. The unsuspecting human resource employee replies to the email with the W-2s attached is delivered to the unknown sender. The law in this area is usually antiquated but is and will continue to change.

In this workshop, we will review the laws that require protection of data, methods of illegal data acquisition, ways to prevent breaches and necessary responses to the breaches. Topics to be addressed include: